By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
I do not know Jeffrey Scott Shapiro ("Another attempt at nullification," Commentary, May 13), but it is quite obvious that he does not understand the process of nullification. I would attribute that to the fact that the subject of nullification is not being taught today, not even in our law schools.
As a former military commander both at home and deployed in war, I understand firsthand the important role free exercise of religion has in the lives of so many of our service members. For multitudes of our nation's defenders, the practice of religious faith is foundational to life itself.
It should come as no surprise that President Obama told Ohio State University students at a graduation ceremony last week that they should not question authority and they should reject the calls of those who do.
Pomp and circumstance, esteemed guests, historical moments — none of that much matters to the many noisy protesters on hand for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on Thursday.
The question often arises at book talks, especially those given to student groups, why the Founding Fathers could speak such high-sounding words about equality and liberty and then ignore the oppressions visited on slaves and Indian tribes.
Saturday marked the 270th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. The third president has been claimed by the Democratic Party as one of its own, with the Jefferson-Jackson dinners that are annual fundraising events, especially for prospective presidential candidates.
In 1798, when John Adams was president of the United States, the feds enacted four pieces of legislation called the Alien and Sedition Acts. One of these laws made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous or malicious writing -- even if true -- about the president or the federal government, notwithstanding the guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment.
March 15 is the 100-year anniversary of the presidential news conference. Woodrow Wilson had been in the White House less than two weeks when his private secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, ushered 125 reporters into the Oval Office for what was the beginning of a love fest between traditionally adversarial parties.
Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo still remembers the gruesome images of the dismembered body of the child whose abortion she was forced to observe. Ms. Cenzon-DeCarlo, a nurse at a hospital in New York City, was required by her employer to assist in the abortion of a 22-week preborn baby.
In all the noise caused by the Obama administration's direct assault on the right of every person to keep and bear arms, the essence of the issue has been drowned out. The president and his big-government colleagues want you to believe that only the government can keep you free and safe, so to them, the essence of this debate is about obedience to law.
Steven Chu, who is leaving his position as secretary of energy, might have been a great pick for the job, if only the real world worked like bad science fiction.
Some of the biggest names in American political history visited the Black Hills over the long President's Day weekend, even stopping at their likenesses at Mount Rushmore.
First a double disclosure: I know Jeffrey Frank, the author of "Ike and Dick," and I knew Richard Nixon, half of this book's political "portrait." I consider the former an honest, accomplished writer and the latter a flawed but visionary statesman and a personally decent man, often more sinned against than sinning. One hopes these two very different personal connections will neutralize each other.
Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close their doors in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., because their religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by their jurisdictions.
The talk of ending the filibuster has finally been put to rest, and liberals are sorely disappointed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came up with a limited compromise that fell well short of the progressives' goal of doing away with the minority's traditional ability to block legislation.
Jefferson said that it would be folly to expect a problem of constitutional corruption in government to be fixed from within that constitutionally corrupt government.
He said that when the legislative and executive branches become similarly corrupted, it would be the Supreme Court that would consolidate their corruption.
